It would be sad if it weren't so stupid, but apparently there is a full-on media war between factions of the ruling class, or that's apparently what we are supposed to think now that the floundering and relatively content-free "Intercept," backed by Pierre Omidyar (eBay, PayPal), is being tweaked by the Big Bullies at Pando, led by Mark Ames and Paul Carr, and backed by a plethora of Silicon Valley billionaires headed by Paul Thiel (PayPal) and Marc Andressen (too many SV software and venture capital endeavors to count). Soon after this supposed media war began, Eric Wemple of the Washington Post chimed in with a mild criticism of disingenuousness at First Look, which had the potential to add the WaPo's owner, Jeff Bezos (Amazon), to the mix, but it seems that for the moment, he has declined. Yesterday, though, Pando published another exposé of monumental Greenwaldian hypocrisy, posting a Bloggingheads video "debate" between Greenwald and Ben Smith of Politico, wherein Greenwald rakes Smith over the coals regarding who finances Politico and what their ("obvious") influence in the newsroom must be.
I saw the "debate" when it happened in 2007, and I read and commented on Greenwald's Salon posts leading up to it. The issue seemed clear enough at the time: big ticket financial backers of media enterprises are likely to influence the way the news is covered -- or if it is covered at all -- simply because they pay the bills and the salaries of their employees. Even if there is no direct contact between the finance side and the newsroom, the influence will be there. As I put it, "Money may not be speech, but it sure talks." (NOTE: Greenwald had only been at Salon for a few months at the time, and tweaking "establishment" media for click bait was part of his "beat" as it were. This was one of the first times at Salon that his goading resulted in a real donnybrook and "debate." Of course, Salon, being the Pioneer in the Online Magazine Field, could accurately be characterized as about as "establishment" as it could get among its internet compatriots. Then again, it was always in financial crisis and needed the clicks... but that's another story for another time.) :-P
The import of this "debate" now is the contrast between Greenwald's questions and certain knowledge then -- that the well known right wing management and funders of Politico must influence the news choices and skew of Politico because they pay the bills -- and the utter cluelessness and disinterest that Greenwald and Marcy have regarding Omidyar and his influence on the virtual "newsroom(s)" at First Look (they know nothing, they care nothing, they have complete "independence" so what their funder and chief does or believes is of no consequence to them.)
In retrospect, it's clear as crystal that not only was Greenwald's 2007 "debate" over Politico's management and funders primarily click-bait, but so were many, many other set-tos between Greenwald and various legal and media personalities. Positions were taken that were for the purpose of the "debate" -- but they did not necessarily have anything to do with personal beliefs or ideology. They were merely taken for the purpose of injecting ideas and getting people to pay attention. Clicks. Forget it, Jake. It's just business.
The pretense of disinterest and cluelessness about Pierre Omidyar's various political and financial operations around the world is extraordinarily -- monumentally -- disingenuous if it is true. To assert that another media outlet's coverage of the news is obviously influenced by the acts and politics of those who fund and operate it, but that First Look is somehow not influenced in any way by Pierre Omidyar's or Glenn Greenwald's positions, acts and interests borders on an absurdist comedy. Of course there is influence, both direct and subtle, and no amount of alleged "independence" can make it go away. As Greenwald rightly noted to Ben Smith all those years ago, journalists "know the work they do ought to be pleasing to the people who sign their paychecks." Of course, it's self-evident. If their work were not "pleasing" to the man or woman with the power of the purse, the journalists in question are not there. Duh.
It was ever thus, it is true everywhere, and it is as true for Greenwald and crew as it is for anyone else in the media business -- if someone else is paying the bills. If their work is not pleasing to the man who pays the bills, their work is not there. This shouldn't be hard to understand. If one's work is not "pleasing," one is not hired in the first place; if one's work ceases to be "pleasing," one is dismissed. One does not have the option of "displeasing" the boss and staying in one's position, and one knows this -- or at least one should.
"Independence" has nothing to do with it. Or rather, what it has to do with it is that the "independence" being asserted is part of what is found "pleasing" by the boss. Assertion of "independence" is what the boss wants. Got it? What "independence" means in practice is intentionally unstated.
Apparently, for a recent example, cluelessness and disinterest in the boss's (Omidyar's) financial and political activities and interests is pleasing to the boss. When the matter is the financial and political activities and interests of some other media outlet, interfering government agency or targeted organization, however, be it Politico or what you will, cluelessness and disinterest are replaced by dogged investigation, accusation and exposure, which in that case is also pleasing to the boss. You see how this works?
Well of course. It's glaringly obvious.
Showing posts with label pando. Show all posts
Showing posts with label pando. Show all posts
Wednesday, March 5, 2014
Saturday, March 1, 2014
Greenwald's Apologetics
I've seen enough of Greenwald's -- and others' -- apologetics on behalf of Omidyar and his New Media Venture First Look and on behalf of those employed by it to be a little bit sickened to slog through one of them again. Greenwald is even more prolix than I am, and he is known for being less than forthcoming. Marcy Wheeler has also issued a statement. There are apparently several others out there, but I'll stick with Greenwald for now.
Background
As a lot of people seem to know -- but many are blissfully oblivious, may they remain at peace! -- Mark Ames over at Pando, one of America's most inveterate Big (enough) Media journalists, a muck-raker of muck-rakers, and all around bon vivant terrible, posted a piece yesterday at Pando in which he pointed to documentary evidence that was apparently quite easy to find that Pierre Omidyar, through his Omidyar Network, has contributed hundreds of thousands of dollars to the Ukrainian opposition that recently succeeded in overthrowing the Yanukovych regime in Kiev.
Omidyar's efforts were aligned with those of a plethora of State Department agencies and activists, NGOs and foundations which together poured millions and millions of dollars into the Yanukovych opposition, providing abundant financial support at the very least. The CIA has also long been rumored to be a part of the funding and support mix keeping the protests going and eventually enabling the end of Yanukovych's rather inept rule.
The fact of direct American involvement in funding the Ukrainian opposition is hardly a surprise, as these things are going on all over the world all the time, and they have a long and brutal history. The surprise, if there is one, is Omidyar's direct funding of opposition groups to the tune of hundreds of thousands of dollars. So far as I've seen, no other billionaire is directly funding the opposition in Ukraine.
Ames said he was clued to look into the matter of outside funding of Ukrainian opposition groups by a series of tweets by Marcy Wheeler which mentioned coups and dark or deep forces and American financial and other backing...
And shortly he found documentary evidence of Omidyar funding of Ukrainian opposition groups in the archives of one of those groups. You can find just about anything online if you look hard enough, eh?
Ames suggested that there might be a journalistic conflict of interest, hmmmm, if Omidyar is funding oppositions while his stable of journalists are... ignorant?
Hard to say.
At any rate, after stonewalling yesterday, both Greenwald and Wheeler have "responded" to the Ames piece with what can only be called Apologetics, and like the Catholic kind, one can believe them or not, but it is difficult or impossible to argue with them, for they ultimately rely on Faith Alone.
GREENWALD
I shall now attempt to do a running commentary on Greenwald's response. (Italicised segments are my paraphrases of Greenwald's statement at the Intercept.)
A. Intro. I just found out about this 30 minutes ago, sorry I haven't responded before now. I don't follow Twitter all the time, you know.
This is typical of Greenwald's defenses and apologetics. It's mostly about something other than the issue at hand, and when the actual topic is addressed, the answer is basically, "I don't care about anything but ME."
That's long been his answer to everything. What about MEEEE?
-----------------------------------------------------------
Oh snap! Paul Carr, Pando editor, responds to Greenwald's apologetics.
Background
As a lot of people seem to know -- but many are blissfully oblivious, may they remain at peace! -- Mark Ames over at Pando, one of America's most inveterate Big (enough) Media journalists, a muck-raker of muck-rakers, and all around bon vivant terrible, posted a piece yesterday at Pando in which he pointed to documentary evidence that was apparently quite easy to find that Pierre Omidyar, through his Omidyar Network, has contributed hundreds of thousands of dollars to the Ukrainian opposition that recently succeeded in overthrowing the Yanukovych regime in Kiev.
Omidyar's efforts were aligned with those of a plethora of State Department agencies and activists, NGOs and foundations which together poured millions and millions of dollars into the Yanukovych opposition, providing abundant financial support at the very least. The CIA has also long been rumored to be a part of the funding and support mix keeping the protests going and eventually enabling the end of Yanukovych's rather inept rule.
The fact of direct American involvement in funding the Ukrainian opposition is hardly a surprise, as these things are going on all over the world all the time, and they have a long and brutal history. The surprise, if there is one, is Omidyar's direct funding of opposition groups to the tune of hundreds of thousands of dollars. So far as I've seen, no other billionaire is directly funding the opposition in Ukraine.
Ames said he was clued to look into the matter of outside funding of Ukrainian opposition groups by a series of tweets by Marcy Wheeler which mentioned coups and dark or deep forces and American financial and other backing...
And shortly he found documentary evidence of Omidyar funding of Ukrainian opposition groups in the archives of one of those groups. You can find just about anything online if you look hard enough, eh?
Ames suggested that there might be a journalistic conflict of interest, hmmmm, if Omidyar is funding oppositions while his stable of journalists are... ignorant?
Hard to say.
At any rate, after stonewalling yesterday, both Greenwald and Wheeler have "responded" to the Ames piece with what can only be called Apologetics, and like the Catholic kind, one can believe them or not, but it is difficult or impossible to argue with them, for they ultimately rely on Faith Alone.
GREENWALD
I shall now attempt to do a running commentary on Greenwald's response. (Italicised segments are my paraphrases of Greenwald's statement at the Intercept.)
A. Intro. I just found out about this 30 minutes ago, sorry I haven't responded before now. I don't follow Twitter all the time, you know.
- This would be called a "dodge" in any rational situation, as the story was posted many hours before someone apparently alerted him to it, and Wheeler had been furiously Twittering with Paul Carr for hours already over it. To suggest that Greenwald hadn't been alerted earlier than "30 minutes ago" is disingenuous at best.
- "Spoken" maybe not, but there is always Twitter and various other communications media that don't require one to "speak" with whomever one is communicating. To say he hasn't "spoken" says nothing about other forms of communications.
- "I had no prior knowledge..." (h/t Tanya Harding) A classic dodge. Lawyers and politicians use it all the time. "You've caught me unawares, I know so very little, but if you'll permit me, I'll attempt to respond to your questions one at a time, and if you'll allow me to, I'll make a statement about what I believe is really important here."
- Uh, "investment?" Ok then, so if this was an investment, one would assume earnings -- a return on investment, no? How, exactly, would that work? Oh, never mind.
- A grant is not an "investment," but in classic Greenwald style, he conflates the two, at one point referring to an "investment" and in the very next paragraph referring to a $3 million "grant" that covers the same thing as his previous "investment." This is a form of trickery called "sleight of hand," in which terms get deliberately jumbled so that later he can say with a straight face, "I don't know what you are referring to."
- This is both disingenuous and nonresponsive as nobody claims they were ashamed of it or trying to hide it. The fact that a grant (or was it an "investment?" You decide) was announced in a 2011 press release and detailed on a website doesn't indicate anything about how well it was publicized. But that isn't the issue.
- Nonresponsive, disingenuous, and distractive. The issue is not that this is a "scandal" but that it is potentially important that a billionaire who is funding a New Media venture is also backing opposition efforts in foreign lands. It has nothing to do with whether Greenwald supports the Ukrainian coup or not. It's not about him in that respect.
- Nonresponsive, disingenuous, distractive, irrelevant. This is what's known as "grandstanding." It has nothing -- at all -- to do with the article in question, it's merely Greenwald's plea for attention. In fact, Ames never mentions the CIA. We may have to come back to this erm... slip... later.
- Typical dodge, but it points to something that, if true, should be worrisome. Basically, Greenwald is using "Lawyer Ethics" -- he'll work for anyone who pays him, and he won't ask questions. That's not journalism. Far from it. The question here is whether he's telling the truth, because if he has never looked into the backgrounds and ties of any of his current/former employers, then he isn't doing even rudimentary due diligence. Or did he, as Alexa O'Brien so elegantly put it, "He fucking lied."
- Irrelevant, nonresponsive, juvenile. 'Nough said.
- Juvenile, puerile, strawman, horseshit. Here Greenwald is accusing Ames, who he refuses to name, of being just like him, unaffected by the "repugnant" views of the of the media outlets they work for. So there. The problem is, Ames hasn't accused Greenwald or anyone else of being "affected," by their employer's political views. That's not the point.
- Nobody said he was. But since he's so sensitive to the accusation that isn't made, maybe somebody should look into it...
- Irrelevant. Ames has always been very up front about the investors in Pando, and their roles with the organization; Greenwald has always feigned ignorance and/or been evasive when asked about Omidyar and his actual role in First Look. Basically, he won't answer about Omidyar, but he seems to know plenty about the funders of other organizations while claiming to know and care nothing about Omidyar.
- Nobody said you were!!!! Why are you yelling!!!!!
- We know. Thank you for sharing.
- Lie. Ames says that he and Poitras have the only "complete" sets of Snowden Docs, something Greenwald has on other occasions acknowledged, but here he implies that Ames claims that Greenwald and Poitras are the only journalists with any of them, but that's simply, obviously and grossly false. Greenwald has done this on other occasions as well when people say he and Poitras have the only "complete" sets of Snowden Docs. He lies and claims they are saying he and Poitras have the only Snowden docs. Both Greenwald and Poitras are also employed by Omidyar. The issue in dispute is whether Omidyar has access to the documents. Greenwald denies it, but we have only his word to rely on. And that word is... decide for yourself...
- Note the dodge here: he is opposed to government interference in the affairs of other nations, but he has nothing to say about private foundations or individuals interfering. Nope. Not a word.
- Juvenile, nonresponsive. Tiresome. Has nothing to do with the topic of Omidyar funding of Ukrainian opposition.
This is typical of Greenwald's defenses and apologetics. It's mostly about something other than the issue at hand, and when the actual topic is addressed, the answer is basically, "I don't care about anything but ME."
That's long been his answer to everything. What about MEEEE?
-----------------------------------------------------------
Oh snap! Paul Carr, Pando editor, responds to Greenwald's apologetics.
Should Glenn Greenwald ever find himself curious as to what his boss is up to, he can rest assured the answers will always be found right here on Pando.The whole thing is kind of precious. But I realize that Twit Wars and pissing contests bore a whole lot of people who have actual lives to lead... ;-)
Friday, February 28, 2014
Stalemate in Ukraine, As Everyone Stands Around Blinking; "Pierre" Helped Fund Coup
"They say" Russian troops are "occupying" key facilities in the Crimea, but there is no confirmation, as the troops on view have no identifying markings and they're not saying anything. I follow updates on the Beeb, not because they're even remotely "evenhanded," but because they are extensive.
Here's a portion of today's live updates:
Seems everyone is standing around blinking and drinking tea and waiting for someone else to do something. Frau Merkel is strangely absent.
Meanwhile, Mark Ames over at Pando has uncovered the rather handsome funding the Omidyar Network has been providing the rebels in Kiev, hardly surprising when you think about it. Billionaires and oligarchs and plutocrats are gonna do what they do, and one of the things they do is synchronize governments all over the world to their bidding. As Ames notes, this is not a new phenomenon, as George Soros was deeply involved in the Color Revolutions of Eastern Europe.
Nevertheless, knowing this man is partially funding the Kiev uprising is kind of icky. Since, so far, the rebels have gotten away with it, and their sponsors are pumping their fists and issuing threats all over the place, one can only wonder which plutocrat - desired and funded rebellion/coup will be next. Venezuela is already in the crosshairs, but many others are in process.
The other thing is that Pierre's funding is combined with that of USAID (also very active in Venezuela) and so serves the combined interests of the US Government and the Billionaire's Boy's Club, and Pierre is also funding all sorts of NGOs active in the rebellion.
There will be blowback, but this is a new chapter in the overthrow of recalcitrant governments and the installation of more compliant ones.
But they still call it "democracy" so it's all good.
Here's a portion of today's live updates:
Men in Russian military uniforms are blockading a military airport in the Black Sea port of Sevastopol. Meanwhile, men in military uniform without national insignia are patrolling an airport in the Crimean capital Simferopol.
Seems everyone is standing around blinking and drinking tea and waiting for someone else to do something. Frau Merkel is strangely absent.
Meanwhile, Mark Ames over at Pando has uncovered the rather handsome funding the Omidyar Network has been providing the rebels in Kiev, hardly surprising when you think about it. Billionaires and oligarchs and plutocrats are gonna do what they do, and one of the things they do is synchronize governments all over the world to their bidding. As Ames notes, this is not a new phenomenon, as George Soros was deeply involved in the Color Revolutions of Eastern Europe.
Nevertheless, knowing this man is partially funding the Kiev uprising is kind of icky. Since, so far, the rebels have gotten away with it, and their sponsors are pumping their fists and issuing threats all over the place, one can only wonder which plutocrat - desired and funded rebellion/coup will be next. Venezuela is already in the crosshairs, but many others are in process.
The other thing is that Pierre's funding is combined with that of USAID (also very active in Venezuela) and so serves the combined interests of the US Government and the Billionaire's Boy's Club, and Pierre is also funding all sorts of NGOs active in the rebellion.
There will be blowback, but this is a new chapter in the overthrow of recalcitrant governments and the installation of more compliant ones.
But they still call it "democracy" so it's all good.
Sunday, February 23, 2014
Pando to Go All Gonzo and S*!t
One of the New Media ventures that have cropped up over the last couple of years is something called "Pando" -- dubbed "the site-of-record for Silicon Valley." It is primarily focused on tech-business news, a topic which has a somewhat limited appeal, but since acquisition of NSFW and its infamous stable of malcontents and dissidents, including Paul Carr, Mark Ames and Yasha Levine (the fate of War Nerd is yet to be determined), and the addition of David Sirota to its reportorial staff last year, Pando has vastly expanded its capabilities and its news content to encompass fierce and pointed media criticism (including New Media), corruption and deceit in ever higher places -- not just in Silicon Valley, and the power politics that is subsuming us all.
Within the last few days, Sarah Lacy and Paul Carr, the commercial and editorial heads of the enterprise, have announced a new and expanded mission for Pando, to encompass the World, I guess, and to do it Full Gonzo. Suckers!
Given what Pierre is up to over at his New Media start up, and given all the other rearrangements of the New Media firmament, if Pando expects to survive, let alone flourish, Going Gonzo is probably the way to do it. Sounds like Ames and Levine chattering away in the background.
But from a strategic standpoint, it makes perfect sense to continue to make as big a splash as possible, with as many OMG! investigative stories as possible, and to make them as hip and shit-kicking as possible, so as to distinguish Pando from the run of the mill New Media sites, some of which, like Pierre's baby, were born out of breath and barely moving.
What the public will gain from all of this media ferment, rearrangement and going Gonzo remains to be seen. Pando and many of the other New Media sites provide pretty decent coverage of particular topics of interest to their specific market/audience segment, though few of them are known for breaking new ground. They rely as much as Legacy Media on the same news wires, and consequently much of their content duplicates the same news that's found everywhere else in the media, sometimes with exactly the same stories.
The main difference between the Old and the New is the splash and the flash and the fact that the New Kids are on the internet more or less exclusively. I say more or less because the internet news sites are more and more integrated with radio and television news and opinion programs as well as more traditional print outlets. There is no real dividing line any more between the internet and ("") Legacy Media. They've long interacted, and now are homogenizing to the point that they are pretty much indistinguishable.
It's just that the traditional media formats are being de-capitalized and the upstarts are being over-capitalized -- on the premise that the Future of News is Online; that's where the money is to be made in the future.
And there are, of course, The Billionaires, Our Own Private Oligarchs.
Pierre isn't the only one. Far from it. The fashion among the billionaires now is to purchase an already extant media enterprise and remake it into something more suited to Billionaires' tastes, or to create something from (almost) scratch that will appeal to the rubes almost as much as it appeals to the Overclass.
All the yabbering about "independent journalism" from staff is obvious bullshit. When all the media outlets become the private fiefs of particular billionaires, we will hear what they want us to hear, see what they want us to see, believe what they want us to believe. That's the game plan.
No longer will the Rabble be subjected to propaganda and lies that haven't been filtered through the billionaires' lens, and won't it be grand?
Pando has a lot of venture capital (though not even a fraction of the initial funding Pierre has dedicated to his New Media startup, nor is it close to the funding some other New Media ventures have raised), but the billionaires behind the scenes are kept well in the background, and they are said to have nothing to do with the content of the site.
Yet the fact is that one is not truly "independent" when one is dependent on the good graces of someone behind the scenes for one's sustenance and quite possibly one's prominence.
It's silly to claim, as FOX News does, that he who pays the piper doesn't call the tune. It's disingenuous. It's a lie. It's a pious fraud in some cases, an outright deception in others.
A way I've long looked at these matters is that "The Media is not your friend."
Media seeks to identify and exploit your vulnerabilities and fears to sell you something, whether it be products or propaganda. Media wants nothing less than control over your actions and beliefs. Your loyal attention is demanded and soon enough, it looks like it might be required.
In the old Soviet Union, the people were quite aware of the propaganda being fed to them by state media, and they were widely and openly contemptuous of it. They read and watched the official "news" -- but they also knew how to read and watch it in order to suss out the real story, if there was one. They also practiced informal person-to-person news dissemination (the famous "samizdat") that provided something much closer to the truth than could be found in the official media.
Americans are not used to thinking the way Soviets did about their media. In the United States and the West in general, it is an article of faith that there will be at least one major mass media outlet available "that you can trust." Building brand loyalty to that "one" media outlet is a full-time marketing job.
But that's how it's done. So long as enough people believe they are getting unbiased or at least accurate news from a mass media source they trust, all is good, and their loyalty to that outlet is assured.
It was recognized long ago, however, that if your trust is placed in any mass media outlet, your trust is misplaced, because they are all propagandizing, generally propagandizing the same things as their rivals, the only difference is they're doing it in a way that will develop your brand loyalty to them. In the process, they tell you lies.
Consequently, an alternative media developed as a companion to the mass media (sometimes actually owned by the same companies that owned the mass media) wherein it might sometimes be possible to find Gonzo investigative journalism that actually exposed what was really going on at a deeper level than even the most high profile award winning investigations in the mass media. Nevertheless, it was necessary to remain skeptical of these alternative media stories, because even if they did get closer to the truth, they were still intended to support the agenda of building brand loyalty, though often enough there would be other agendas as well.
"Pando Goes Gonzo" is all well and good, but nevertheless, I wouldn't put any faith in it. It's a marketing tool, one that shouldn't be sneezed at because it often works, but the results may not be any more informative or useful than anything else that turns up in the New Media.
Be skeptical, be critical, be wary.
"The Media is Not Your Friend."
Within the last few days, Sarah Lacy and Paul Carr, the commercial and editorial heads of the enterprise, have announced a new and expanded mission for Pando, to encompass the World, I guess, and to do it Full Gonzo. Suckers!
Given what Pierre is up to over at his New Media start up, and given all the other rearrangements of the New Media firmament, if Pando expects to survive, let alone flourish, Going Gonzo is probably the way to do it. Sounds like Ames and Levine chattering away in the background.
But from a strategic standpoint, it makes perfect sense to continue to make as big a splash as possible, with as many OMG! investigative stories as possible, and to make them as hip and shit-kicking as possible, so as to distinguish Pando from the run of the mill New Media sites, some of which, like Pierre's baby, were born out of breath and barely moving.
What the public will gain from all of this media ferment, rearrangement and going Gonzo remains to be seen. Pando and many of the other New Media sites provide pretty decent coverage of particular topics of interest to their specific market/audience segment, though few of them are known for breaking new ground. They rely as much as Legacy Media on the same news wires, and consequently much of their content duplicates the same news that's found everywhere else in the media, sometimes with exactly the same stories.
The main difference between the Old and the New is the splash and the flash and the fact that the New Kids are on the internet more or less exclusively. I say more or less because the internet news sites are more and more integrated with radio and television news and opinion programs as well as more traditional print outlets. There is no real dividing line any more between the internet and ("") Legacy Media. They've long interacted, and now are homogenizing to the point that they are pretty much indistinguishable.
It's just that the traditional media formats are being de-capitalized and the upstarts are being over-capitalized -- on the premise that the Future of News is Online; that's where the money is to be made in the future.
And there are, of course, The Billionaires, Our Own Private Oligarchs.
Pierre isn't the only one. Far from it. The fashion among the billionaires now is to purchase an already extant media enterprise and remake it into something more suited to Billionaires' tastes, or to create something from (almost) scratch that will appeal to the rubes almost as much as it appeals to the Overclass.
All the yabbering about "independent journalism" from staff is obvious bullshit. When all the media outlets become the private fiefs of particular billionaires, we will hear what they want us to hear, see what they want us to see, believe what they want us to believe. That's the game plan.
No longer will the Rabble be subjected to propaganda and lies that haven't been filtered through the billionaires' lens, and won't it be grand?
Pando has a lot of venture capital (though not even a fraction of the initial funding Pierre has dedicated to his New Media startup, nor is it close to the funding some other New Media ventures have raised), but the billionaires behind the scenes are kept well in the background, and they are said to have nothing to do with the content of the site.
Yet the fact is that one is not truly "independent" when one is dependent on the good graces of someone behind the scenes for one's sustenance and quite possibly one's prominence.
It's silly to claim, as FOX News does, that he who pays the piper doesn't call the tune. It's disingenuous. It's a lie. It's a pious fraud in some cases, an outright deception in others.
A way I've long looked at these matters is that "The Media is not your friend."
Media seeks to identify and exploit your vulnerabilities and fears to sell you something, whether it be products or propaganda. Media wants nothing less than control over your actions and beliefs. Your loyal attention is demanded and soon enough, it looks like it might be required.
In the old Soviet Union, the people were quite aware of the propaganda being fed to them by state media, and they were widely and openly contemptuous of it. They read and watched the official "news" -- but they also knew how to read and watch it in order to suss out the real story, if there was one. They also practiced informal person-to-person news dissemination (the famous "samizdat") that provided something much closer to the truth than could be found in the official media.
Americans are not used to thinking the way Soviets did about their media. In the United States and the West in general, it is an article of faith that there will be at least one major mass media outlet available "that you can trust." Building brand loyalty to that "one" media outlet is a full-time marketing job.
But that's how it's done. So long as enough people believe they are getting unbiased or at least accurate news from a mass media source they trust, all is good, and their loyalty to that outlet is assured.
It was recognized long ago, however, that if your trust is placed in any mass media outlet, your trust is misplaced, because they are all propagandizing, generally propagandizing the same things as their rivals, the only difference is they're doing it in a way that will develop your brand loyalty to them. In the process, they tell you lies.
Consequently, an alternative media developed as a companion to the mass media (sometimes actually owned by the same companies that owned the mass media) wherein it might sometimes be possible to find Gonzo investigative journalism that actually exposed what was really going on at a deeper level than even the most high profile award winning investigations in the mass media. Nevertheless, it was necessary to remain skeptical of these alternative media stories, because even if they did get closer to the truth, they were still intended to support the agenda of building brand loyalty, though often enough there would be other agendas as well.
"Pando Goes Gonzo" is all well and good, but nevertheless, I wouldn't put any faith in it. It's a marketing tool, one that shouldn't be sneezed at because it often works, but the results may not be any more informative or useful than anything else that turns up in the New Media.
Be skeptical, be critical, be wary.
"The Media is Not Your Friend."
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